As soon as Clippers point guard Chris Paul sat down at the post-game news conference Friday, he was told that his coach — Doc Rivers — blamed poor defense for their team’s 118-112 Game 3 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night in the Western Conference semifinals at Staples Center.

Paul was in complete agreement.

“No question,” said Paul, whose team trails 2-1 in the series and will host the Thunder in Game 4 at 12:30 p.m. Sunday

Even when the team had not played well defensively early in a game, it had gotten stops down the stretch, Paul noted.

A 3-pointer by Russell Westbrook and a cold-blooded, turn-around jumper by Kevin Durant over Paul were the biggest daggers. But Serge Ibaka was left alone all night, and he ended up making 9 of 10 field goals for 20 points.

At the end of the night, the Thunder had shot 55.7 percent.

Rivers scoffed when a query was made as to whether his team got tired trying to contain the Thunder.

“I don’t buy into fatigue,” he said. “They’re just as tired as us. Seven-game series, they went through. We’ve gone through it. You never use that. Everybody’s tired right now. ... Fatigue cannot be used. We just have to be mentally tougher.”

Not only did Durant score 36 and Westbrook 23, the Oklahoma City bench got huge contributions by Caron Butler and Reggie Jackson, both of whom had 14 points.

Rivers talks remedy

So, Rivers was asked, what’s the solution to avoiding another loss and then being down 3-1 heading back to Oklahoma City for Tuesday’s Game 5?

“We have to play harder, better, faster, smarter,” he said at practice Saturday. “I don’t think we have to make a lot of adjustments, after watching the tape. We have to do what we should do to help us get better.

“And I’m not going to get specific, but there are things we are not doing that we should do.”

Rivers, in a roundabout way, said one is not leaving guys like Ibaka wide open.

There’s more, Rivers said.

“I do think that’s one advantage Oklahoma has had over us in this series, they have several guys who have been all the way to the finals (in 2011-12) and they get the urgency of every single possession, and we’ve been in and out of that throughout the playoffs,” he said.

“And for us to keep going, we have to get that every-possession urgency defensively, and offensively.”

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Paul: team has to win

Some players won’t use the “must-win” term unless it’s an elimination game. Paul had no trouble, however, when asked how his team overcomes being psychologically down because it has lost two in a row after a terrific showing in a Game 1 victory at Oklahoma City.

“Just come out and ready to play,” said Paul, who had 21 points, 16 assists and not one turnover in 42 minutes. “It’s a tough one here. But we need to get Game 4. It’s like a must-win for us, a big game for us.

“We knew that we were going to have to win at least one there, and now we’re going to have to win two there. We’re going to have to start off with a Game 4 win.”